The present invention relates generally to program reproduction systems and methods for reproducing broadcast programs or other types of programs, each comprised of a set of music and/or picture information, downloaded or distributed via a communication network, and more particularly to an improved program reproduction system and method that are for example capable of reproducing programs comprising a mixture of various contents of different characters.
Typical examples of the conventionally-known systems for distributing broadcast or other types of programs, comprised of music or video data, include radio and television broadcasting systems. However, because radio and television programs are sent unidirectionally from broadcasting stations, interested users or audiences (listeners or viewers) are unable to listen to or view their desired programs at their desired time. Thus, “Internet” broadcasting stations have recently come on the scene as a new form of program distributing facility that is different from the existing radio and television broadcasting stations. The Internet broadcasting stations each distribute any of programs stored somewhere on a communication network, at an interested user's request; that is, on the basis of an interested user's request entered via a terminal (client) such as a personal computer (PC), the client station is connected to a World Wide Web (WWW) server by way of a communication network, such as the Internet, so that the client station is supplied with a program of music piece or video (picture) data stored previously in the WWW server and then reproduces the program on the basis of the received data. Normally, for data distribution using a communication network, each WWW server distributes the data in streams to a client station in such a manner that reproduction of a requested music piece, picture or the like can be initiated before reception of all the necessary data has been completed by the client station. With such an Internet broadcasting station, audiences are allowed to listen to or view any desired programs at any desired convenient time.
Program contents to be distributed via a communication network can be diversified by making programs of a wide variety of contents. For that purpose, the programs have to be made to contain a plurality of contents having different characters (e.g., different data formats) in a mixed fashion. However, with the above-mentioned Internet broadcasting stations, all the contents in each one of the programs are arranged to have a same character (same data format). Namely, the Internet broadcasting stations today can not provide programs of diversified contents due to the fact that the conventionally-known program reproduction systems used in connection with the Internet broadcasting stations and the like are unable to reproduce programs containing a plurality of types of contents having different characters in a mixed fashion (e.g., programs which comprise a mixture of plural types of contents prepared in different data formats, such as contents of MIDI music performance information, audio sounds and pictures).
Further, with the conventionally-known program reproduction systems, interested users can not freely enjoy a distributed program by fast-forwarding/fast-rewinding a desired content within the program. Further, interested users can not purchase a desired content of the distributed program. In addition, interested users can not create their own original program by optionally combining a plurality of contents of the distributed program. Besides, interested users are unable to view information pertaining to and descriptive of sequentially reproduced contents (i.e., content-related information) separately on a content-by-content basis.